Speed Racer of the Year: Usain Bolt

Nobody believes in Usain Bolt. It's not just the soured masses who now assume that behind every great track accomplishment is a great pharmacist. And it's not just the sports physiologists who claim Bolt's body simply cannot be sized and shaped the way it is. And it's not just spectators and competitors and commentators who concede his factuality while still finding him ridiculous. "A ridiculous race!" the immortal Michael Johnson said of Bolt's world-record-shattering 200 meters in Berlin last summer. Even the people closest to the man have disbelieved. It's easy to forget now, but there was a time when Usain Bolt had to beg for permission to run the 100 meters.

But in the spring of 2008, he prevailed upon his coach to let him run the short dash at a meet in New York City. And broke the world record. Two months later in Beijing...well, you saw it. And then came the world championships this past summer in Berlin, where he shattered his own 100- and 200-meter records, shaving a preposterous .11 of a second off each. You saw the races. You kept thinking you were looking at some kind of optical illusion, right? And yet you believed, not despite but because of all the ways in which Usain Bolt busts orthodoxies and defies belief; you believed because the man is, simply, ridiculous.